Thursday, June 23, 2016

Islamic State Picks Up Its Suicide Bombers In Iraq And Syria

The Islamic State is in the midst of its annual spring
offensive. This has been marked by an increase in suicide bombings in both Iraq
and Syria. Monthly numbers the group has released on social media show this
campaign. In November 2015 it launched 54 suicide bombers, followed by 61 in
December, spiking at 85 in January 2016, before going back down to 69 in
February. Then the spring campaign started and there were 112 suicide bombers
in March, 83 in April and 81 in May. As a recent RAND study found
the Islamic State is a bureaucratic organization that loves keeping records of
all of its different operations and actions. While these figures may not cover
all of the suicide bombings in Iraq and Syria they probably constitute the
majority of them.

Islamic State vs Iraqi Govt Suicide Bombing Claims

Islamic
State

Iraqi Govt

Total

(Successful
vs Destroyed)

May

81

310 (49 vs 261)

April

83

233 (25 vs 208)

March

112

235 (41 vs 194)

February

69

141 (13 vs 128)

January

85

248 (40 vs 208)

December

61

174 (27 vs 147)

November

54

217 (26 vs 191)

IS’s new campaign was reflected in figures given by the
Iraqi forces. The number of successful suicide bombings in Iraq roughly followed
IS’s statistics. Bombings went from 26 in November to 27 in December, then up
to 40 in January, and then down to 13 in February following IS’s totals of 54,
61, 85, and 69. When spring started bombings went up to 41 in March, 25 in
April and 49 in May just as IS’s figures had 112, 83 and 81 for those months.

At the same time, Iraq was hugely exaggerating the number of
suicide bombers it killed each month. In November it claimed 191, followed by
147 in December, 208 in January, 128 in February, 194 in March, 208 in April,
and 261 in May. In total that would mean in November 2014 when IS claimed 54
suicide bombers in both Iraq and Syria, the Iraqis claimed that they faced 217
such attacks. There were many times when the Iraqi press would initially say
one suicide car bomb was destroyed in the morning, and then by the night that
was up to 5 to 10 blown up. The number of killed suicide bombers also did not
follow the ebb and flow of IS’s figures. It seemed like the Iraqi numbers were
driven more by when its forces went on the offensive against IS. That was when
the insurgents would counter attack and the Iraqi forces would claim most of
these included suicide bombers. In March for example, the Iraqi forces were
trying to clear western Anbar and started an operation in the Makhmour district
of Ninewa it claimed a total of 235 suicide bombings, up from 141 the month
before. In May they cleared out western Anbar from Ramadi to Jordan and then
started the attack upon Fallujah and claimed 310 suicide bombs as a result. In
comparison, IS said it launched 81 suicide bombers total in both Syria and Iraq
that month.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the politics, economics, security, culture and history of Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com